


Leaving New York

by divenire



Series: Prompt Project [50]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Stiles is kind of mentioned, basically the idea is that Derek sort of met Stiles before he saw him for the first time, this is mostly about Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-19
Updated: 2012-11-19
Packaged: 2017-11-19 00:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divenire/pseuds/divenire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek is just walking down the street, minding his own business, when out of nowhere the scent hits him.</p><p>It smells like… he doesn’t know how to describe it, but he knows that he has to find whoever it is that smells like that and… and… he doesn’t know. He’ll figure it out once he figures out how to stop the wolf in him from howling and going mad.</p><p>He tracks the scent for hours, but ultimately, it leads him nowhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaving New York

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this one a while ago, but somehow I managed to miss posting it to both ffn and ao3!

Derek is just walking down the street, minding his own business, when out of nowhere the scent hits him.

It smells like… he doesn’t know how to describe it, but he knows that he has to find whoever it is that smells like that and… and… he doesn’t know. He’ll figure it out once he figures out how to stop the wolf in him from howling and going mad.

He tracks the scent for hours, but ultimately, it leads him nowhere.

Sometimes he really hates New York.

Usually, he likes it. Usually he likes the anonyminity of the city and how sometimes he can just wander the city, following any odd scent that catches his attention. He likes all the different types of food and how he could easily never eat at the same restaurant twice.

But now? Now he hates it.

Because he’s lost that scent and it’s driving him so crazy that he’s not even sure it ever really existed. Maybe his brain just made it up.

Disgruntled, more so than usual, he goes back to the apartment and finds Laura packing a suitcase.

He doesn’t say anything, just waits for her to look over at him and explain just what the hell the suitcase is for.

“I’m going to Beacon Hills for a few days,” she says without bothering to so much as look up at him. She just keeps fluttering all over the room, packing her bag with unusual speed.

“Why?”

“That nurse, I forget her name. The one that takes care of Peter. She called. Said he’s been…” She shrugs her shoulders and he can see, just in that tiny motion, that whatever it is is really bothering her. “He’s been…” She stops what she’s doing and just sort of stands there, still. “She thinks maybe he can hear her, or something. I have to go.”

Peter was always her favorite uncle and it kills her knowing he’s like that. Just stuck like that.

Derek wants to say something to comfort her, he wants to tell her that he’s sorry this happened, that he’s sorry for everything but instead what comes out is, “You don’t want me to come, do you?” He wants to kick himself for saying that, but there’s no taking it back now.

She shakes her head and picks back up again, moving at cartoon tornado fast speed now. “She just called. If you hadn’t come home just now, I was just going to leave you a note.”

“Oh.”

That’s it. Oh. He doesn’t have any other words.

She doesn’t say much else, reminds him to water the plants, to pay the rent on the first. He nods, of course he will, and she’s gone.

She was supposed to come back on the third, but when she isn’t back by the fifth, and hasn’t answered her phone since the second, Derek gets on the next flight to LA. He rents a car from there and drives to Beacon Hills. He calls her six more times on the drive from LA to Beacon Hills and still, no answer. He’d leave a voicemail, except for that he’s already filled up her inbox. He’d leave a text message, except for that she hates those and wouldn’t answer one even if she was answering her phone.

It doesn’t take him long to figure out what happened when he gets into town. He can smell her everywhere, but it’s not her. The smell is wrong, it’s all mixed with decay and he doesn’t have to see her to know it. She’s dead.

She’s dead and the last thing they said to each other was something about paying the rent.

The other weird thing about Beacon Hills?

The town is coated in that smell. The one he thought he made up. The one that makes his wolf howl and claw him up from the inside.


End file.
